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A new semiconductor report projects that 2D planar scaling will end by 2021, replaced by 3D logic integration and stacked chips — but how will this affect long-term device scaling and overall performance?

Researchers at the University of Dublin have discovered a method of creating graphene sheets that scale to industrial levels and could dramatically reduce the material’s price. Integration with semiconductor manufacturing, however, could still still take years.

The copper wires in computer chips can only get so thin before the increased resistance and other manufacturing issues make them unworkable. Graphene, however, by virtue of its status as a wonder material, isn’t hindered by the same puny restrictions as copper and could theoretically scale down to just a handful of nanometers or less, allowing for the creation of computer chips that are orders of magnitude more dense and powerful, while consuming less energy.

Researchers at MIT’s Microsystems Technology Lab (MTL) have created the smallest transistor fashioned from indium gallium arsenide, a material that is being positioned as an eventual successor to silicon. MIT’s indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs) transistor has a gate length of just 22nm — roughly the same size as the smallest features on Intel’s 22nm FinFET Ivy Bridge chips.

In our first piece, we considered the death of CPU scaling — here, we examine alternative materials, the future of product integration, and what lies beyond Moore’s law

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